David Sherrill

David Sherrill is an American theoretical chemist known for contributions to ab initio electronic structure theory, intermolecular forces, and computational methods for large molecular systems. He has developed and applied wavefunction-based approaches to problems in physical chemistry, collaborating across institutions and integrating methods with software and database resources. His work connects advanced quantum chemistry techniques to applications in Materials Science, Biochemistry, Pharmaceutical industry, Nanotechnology, and Chemical Physics.

Early life and education

Sherrill received undergraduate and graduate training at prominent institutions including Harvard University, University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology, where he studied theoretical and computational methods alongside researchers connected to Linus Pauling, John Pople, Walter Kohn, and Micha Tom. During his doctoral and postdoctoral periods he engaged with communities centered at Bell Labs, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, interacting with scientists from IBM and Bell Telephone Laboratories. His formative mentors and peers included faculty from Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and Yale University, which shaped his interests in correlated electron methods, perturbation theory, and basis set development.

Research and contributions

Sherrill's research program emphasizes wavefunction-based correlated electronic structure approaches such as coupled cluster, configuration interaction, and symmetry-adapted perturbation theory, building on concepts from Hendrik Casimir, Herman Feshbach, Lars Onsager, Frederick Reines, and methods popularized by John C. Slater and Richard Feynman. He has advanced methods for accurate treatment of noncovalent interactions, van der Waals forces, hydrogen bonding, and dispersion, contributing to understanding systems studied by researchers at Institute for Advanced Study, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and Max Planck Society. His group developed protocols and benchmark databases that serve the communities working with Gaussian, Inc., Schrödinger, Inc., Accelrys, and academic software projects at University of California, San Diego and University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. Collaborations and citations link his work to investigations in Protein Data Bank, Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, and computational initiatives at European Molecular Biology Laboratory.

Academic career and positions

He has held professorial appointments at Emory University and collaborated with faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology, maintaining ties to national centers such as National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, and international consortia including European Research Council. His group trained students and postdocs who subsequently joined departments at Columbia University, University of Chicago, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of Texas at Austin, Cornell University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Duke University. He served on advisory boards for initiatives at Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and on committees linked to American Chemical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, and International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry.

Awards and honors

Sherrill's recognitions include society-level awards and fellowships associated with organizations such as American Chemical Society, American Physical Society, Royal Society, National Academy of Sciences, Guggenheim Foundation, and funding from National Science Foundation and Department of Energy programs. He has been invited to deliver named lectures at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Stanford University, California Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, ETH Zurich, and the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research. His work has been cited in reviews and textbooks published by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Wiley, and Springer Nature.

Selected publications

- Sherrill, D. et al., benchmark studies on noncovalent interactions in collaboration with authors from University of Cambridge, Columbia University, University of Oxford, and ETH Zurich; journals include Journal of Chemical Physics, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Chemical Reviews, Nature Communications, and Physical Review Letters. - Methodological papers advancing coupled-cluster techniques, symmetry-adapted perturbation theory, and basis set extrapolations cited alongside work from John Pople, Walter Kohn, Martin Head-Gordon, and Frank Neese. - Database and software contributions linked to open infrastructure projects used by groups at University of California, Los Angeles, University of Toronto, McMaster University, and University of British Columbia.

Category:Living people Category:Theoretical chemists Category:Computational chemists